Like his predecessors, State Representative John LaBruzzo (R-Metairie) apparently enjoys the attention. In 2008, LaBruzzo made national headlines after floating the idea of paying poor women $1,000 each to get their tubes tied, while, at the same time, providing tax incentives for wealthier women to have children. Critics accused him of promoting eugenics, a charge I’m certain he would swiftly deny. Notably, nearly two decades ago, David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, served the same exact district in the Louisiana House of Representatives, and in 1991, just like LaBruzzo, Mr. Duke also made national news after he proposed providing $100 a year to welfare recipients who used a sterilization drug.
For some, to quote Yogi Berra, it was “deja vu all over again.”
Now, Mr. LaBruzzo’s back in the national news. He’s currently proposing a bill that would directly challenge Supreme Court precedent and ban all abortions in Louisiana, except in the event that a mother’s life is in danger. Recently, he compared women who seek abortions to drug users. When the bill was up for discussion in committee, LaBruzzo said, “It doesn’t matter if you’ve voted for every pro-life bill that’s come to this committee. This is THE pro-life bill. This is THE pro-life bill. And I’d think you’d be in a difficult situation if you voted against this bill and tried to convince everybody that you are adamantly pro-life.” John LaBruzzo, you see, owns this issue: Either you vote for his radical bill– a bill that some believe could threaten a woman’s fundamental access to birth control– or you’re against human life.
Enough of the snark. I don’t have any desire, at all, to debate abortion, though I do believe that taxpayers in Mr. LaBruzzo’s district are wasting their hard-earned money paying the salary of a man who seems to be more interested in being a right-wing, ridiculously provocative culture warrior than doing anything concretely for his constituents. Maybe they think it puts them on the map. Maybe they’re just used to that type of representation.
Either way, here’s my challenge to Mr. LaBruzzo and to every single member of the Louisiana legislature. In fairness and in all honesty, it’s not my original idea; it’s my friend’s idea, and I think it has merit.
John LaBruzzo, literally, wants to redefine the legal definition of human life. That’s his right as a lawmaker.
So, let’s be morally and legally consistent, as much as that is possible, even if it is just a massive waste of time and taxpayer money.
If this actually, somehow passes, then it should do so with at least one amendment: The Jindal Amendment.
As the son of Indian immigrants who was born in Baton Rouge, Bobby Jindal, at birth, was an American citizen. His parents may have been citizens of India at the time, but Governor Jindal was born on American soil. In America, he was entitled citizenship by virtue of his birth here in the Gret Stet of Louisiana. It’s difficult for me to believe that Governor Jindal would ever sign into law something that could potentially disqualify the meritoriousness of his own citizenship or the potentiality of future immigrants to enjoy the same rights he has, including the right to, one day, become President of the United States.
So, to members of the legislature and to the Governor, if we’re going to redefine life, we are also duly obligated to redefine citizenship.
Ergo, the Jindal Amendment: To provide that the full privileges, rights, and benefits of natural-born citizenship shall be granted to to all persons conceived within the official, duly-recognized political boundaries of the United States of America.
CenLamar 
Boomerangs are such problems these days…
Lamar,
We do not redefine a person who has a terminal disease as “no longer a person” if medical science has no answer for their conditions.
Why is it we define the beginning of life as “viability” which varies with the advancement of neo-natal medical capabilities? Because 5 men on the US Supreme Court said so in 1973.
While I do not agree with every aspect of the proposal, the suggestion this is not a serious debate, and a debate about which we can have significant, but well-reasoned differences is preposterous. I get it – progressives desire the option of abortion on demand, right up to delivery. Conceptually, ya’ll believe an unborn child is a growth out of, and indistinguisable from the mother’s kidneys, lungs, ovaries, appendix, etc., until breathing air. What you don’t seem to be able to respect is that those of us championing the rights of the unborn child to continue living honestly, sincerely believe the child is a human being, and deserving of society’s protection.
What is abhorrent, and where I have failed morally and ethically, is that I have been so fatigued and distracted (by both pro-life and pro-choice activists) that I no longer hold a political position against abortion, as currently constituted. Effectively I would vote for a pro-choice candidate, with whom I agree with on the balance of issues over a pro-life candidate with whom I have significant differences.
I take the monstrous position that, if a mother is capable of overriding the most basic instinct possessed by nearly all other mammals and many other creatures in the animal kingdom, and destroy her own offspring, perhaps that is Darwin’s way of selecting such deficient genes out of the pool. Is that progress?
Ace:
Methinks your reading comprehension skills have failed you. Perhaps this will help:
The vote on Roe v. Wade was 7 to 2:
Majority
Chief Justice Warren Burger
Justice William O. Douglas
Justice William J. Brennan
Justice Potter Stewart
Justice Thurgood Marshall
Justice Harry Blackmun*
Justice Lewis Powell
Dissenting
Justice Byron White
Justice William Rehnquist
* Blackmun wrote the majority opinion.
I won’t even get into the rest of your diatribe, as it is clear you have no desire to actually have a discussion about the issue.
I’ve read the decision. I knew the vote was 7-2 – I used “5” as the rhetorical number required to achieve the decision. Even by many who agree with the result of the decision, it is widely regarded as poorly written and cumbersome.
The political irony is: Justice White (yes, the same Byron “Whizzer” White, runner up to Yale’s Clint Frank in the 1937 Heisman voting) was a Kennedy appointee, while Harry “Lefty” Blackmun was appointed by Nixon. Likewise, Brennan, Powell and Burger were nominated by Nixon and Stewart and Brennan by Ike. Out of the 7 votes for abortion in “Roe”, 5 were appointed by Republican presidents, and only 2, Marshall (Kennedy) and Douglas (FDR), were by Democratic presidents.
Nice use of “diatribe”, by the way.
Sorry – Marshall by LBJ, and Brennan by Nixon – got the whole Pres/VP crossed up on those two.
“While I do not agree with every aspect of the proposal, the suggestion this is not a serious debate, and a debate about which we can have significant, but well-reasoned differences is preposterous. I get it – progressives desire the option of abortion on demand, right up to delivery. Conceptually, ya’ll believe an unborn child is a growth out of, and indistinguisable from the mother’s kidneys, lungs, ovaries, appendix, etc., until breathing air. What you don’t seem to be able to respect is that those of us championing the rights of the unborn child to continue living honestly, sincerely believe the child is a human being, and deserving of society’s protection.”
What, on earth, are you talking about? I have never met a single person in my entire life who advocates “abortion on demand, right up to delivery.” Seriously, with all due respect to you, Ace, you’re not just wrong; you’re ignorant, and you’re couching ignorance in hyperbolic, moral superiority. It’s repugnant, blithering non-sense.
I am a progressive. Yesterday, I felt my baby niece give a few fierce kicks and a few elbow jabs. She hasn’t been born yet. Easily, one of the best moments in my life.
Sorry, for me, this isn’t one of those discussions you should ever into by firing stupidly offensive rhetorical grenades, like the “monstrous position” you pretend to believe. By doing so, you take yourself out of the discussion. You don’t look wise. You don’t come across as morally superior or as any sort of “champion” for the rights of the unborn.
Why?
Because you’re publicly lying about progressive Americans. Maybe it’s not purposeful. Maybe you honestly believe that progressives want “abortions on demand, right up to delivery” or that progressives somehow believe that until you physically breathe oxygen outside of the womb, you’re nothing more than a “growth.” It doesn’t matter to me whether or not you actually believe this; either way, it’s offensive, and it’s a lie.
And if you want to begin a real discussion, if you seek real solutions, then maybe you should consider treating people who don’t necessarily agree with you as real human beings. You may be surprised how much you have in common.
Lamar,
Prove me wrong. Where is the line? Where is the line where society, the government and law enforcement can come in and say, “No ma’am, you cannot destory the child now – you have to allow the child to be born, and then you can put it up for adoption at that point.”
Where is the line and who decides, if it is not in fact “abortion on demand, right up to delivery”?
Didn’t you study and practice the law?
You want me to begin citing cases? Honestly?
Or, are you more interested in hearing that there is no single line? That rational human beings understand the nuances, that you’re parroting ignorance?